


i really can't stay

by kissmeinnewyork



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fluff, SO FLUFFY, and a little angsty, literally the fluffiest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 11:18:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5454695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissmeinnewyork/pseuds/kissmeinnewyork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Because it's Christmas, and you should spend the holidays with those you love, and I love you more than anything else in this universe and the next." (twenty-four stories in six parts, christmas fic, exclusively twelve and clara.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. days one to four

**Author's Note:**

> This is my christmas contribution to the whouffaldi fandom. Five more parts to come. Enjoy it. Any and all feedback is welcome. x

**/mistletoe**

She buys it as a joke, really, because Clara _knows_ how much the Doctor will squirm when he sees it. He’ll mutter something about being against _trivial earth traditions_ and sulk for a bit but then come running back when he’s bored and wants to see some planets. Seeing his face is just an opportunity she can’t pass up on.

She hangs it in the doorway to her living room, almost falling off her wobbly dressing table as she does so. The cluster of green leaves hangs well above her head but it’ll catch on the Doctor’s, directly in his line of sight. Maybe he’ll rip it down, she muses, half a grin on her face. Maybe he’ll pretend it’s not there at all.

He arrives about half an hour later. Bony fists clatter on the glass of her front door and he’s wearing a new coat, midnight blue velvet, and his tousled grey hair is combed back. He follows her through her home – she claims she needs to change her shoes – and he comes face-to-face with her little festive booby-trap.

He’s confused at first; he examines it from the frame, considering it might be some sort of outer-space planty poison-thing that’s out to get Clara (because, come on, that sort of trouble just seems to follow her around). When he realises its _viscum album_ his face instantly softens apart from one sharply raised eyebrow and a bemused smirk.

He points upwards. “Really? A bit desperate, even by your standards.”

She scowls. She doesn’t exactly expect that response. She jabs him in the ribs. “Shut up. It’s _Christmas._ I’m allowed to hang mistletoe in my home if I want to.”

“I believe in order to carry out the tradition, two people are required,” he says, “And seeing as you live on your own, I’d consider it desperate. Unless you’ve got another _boyfriend._ ”

She doesn’t like the way he says it, all callous and unmeaning. Broken pieces of her heart shift in her chest. She crosses her arms huffily – she shouldn’t have bothered with it. “No, no boyfriend.”

He can sense he’s upset her – he seems do it effortlessly – and it’s the last thing he wants, even if when he speaks it doesn’t turn out that way. A sigh escapes his lips and he pulls her forward, to her own surprise, hands cupped around her neck.

“Let’s get this over with,” he grumbles, but there’s the edge of a smile on his face.

It’s light and sweet and not exactly what she’s expecting, but it’s not as if she’s complaining.

**/hot chocolate**

It’s two days before Christmas and they’re in Moscow, 2011. The sky is dark but Red Square is one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen, covered in lights and stalls and street-performers. She’s seen the birth of supernovas and prehistoric rainforests, but there’s something stunning about humanity at Christmastime.

The Doctor is wearing a ridiculous fur hat bought by a street salesman and he’s only got it on because it makes Clara laugh. He doesn’t value much, but her laugh is one of those things, along with her arm being looped in his and the northern lights in her eyes. He buys her hot chocolate from a man dressed like a jester and chokes a laugh when she grimaces.

“Christ – that’s like drinking pure chocolate!” she coughs, “Is there anything in this other than sugar?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Probably not.”

She frowns but takes another sip anyway. He can smell honey and cinnamon. Clara Oswald is happy. Life is good.

**/snow**

“I can’t remember the last time we had a white Christmas.”

She says this tracing patterns in condensation in a coffee shop window with her fingertip. It’s London 2015, but she’s exceptionally busy and he just wants to see her so they make a compromise and meet in her lunch break. The tea is unbelievably mediocre but the company is not, so he’s satisfied, for now.

He leans back in his chair – it’s a cumbersome leather thing that really mismatches with the fairly modern interior, but nevertheless comfortable. He presses his fingertips together. “There was one in 2010, I believe.”

She furrows her brows for a moment before realisation hits her. “I was in Florida that year. Dad had just married Linda and she was obsessed with going abroad for Christmas – it was horrible, by the way. Worst holiday of my life.”

“Not hot enough for you?”

“Ha. If only weather was the problem,” she murmurs, “That I could deal with. Two weeks in a villa with my step-mother? I spent most of it in the bar chatting to a hot waiter.”

He smirks a little at that. The poor waiter. “There’s a planet in the Coraxi System where it snows on a constant basis. They don’t celebrate Christmas there but if they did, every year would be a white Christmas.” He leans forward, their eyes interlocked, “We could go for a quick trip there, if you like.”

She hesitates for a moment, like she’s tempted, but shakes her head firmly. Her finger points accusingly in his direction. “No. I’m _busy._ Don’t try and persuade me. It’s not fair.”

“Not my fault you’re ridiculously easy to convince.”

“You know what?” she takes a sip of her tea, eyelashes fluttering over the rim of her cup, “Sometimes I really, really hate you.”

Now that, _that_ is hilarious. Her face doesn’t stay stoic for long; she collapses into a reluctant smile and his is impossible to hide. Hate and love, they’re seemingly synonymous. She interchanges them on a frequent basis. He does it in his head sometimes.

“There are three moons that never go down,” he continues, “And they leave the sky magenta. The children let off paper lanterns filled with Lofafa flowers – they’re like rose petals, in white and gold and maroon…”

She’s pretending not to listen to him. Instead, she pokes her teabag with her spoon, watching floods of colour disperse into the water. She thinks of a hundred tiny lights in the sky and a bright pink midnight haze. Snow crunching beneath her boots, melting on her tongue, on the shoulders of the Doctor’s coat. Oh _God,_ she’s aching for an adventure, but there’s a mountain of marking on her desk and sixth formers to prep for mock exams.

“Did I mention the snow tastes like raspberries?”

She bashes her fist on the table angrily. The Doctor knows she’s figured forgoing this battle is not the end of the world – not this world, anyway – and the snow tastes like raspberries, so she’s really got no choice in the matter.

**/candy canes**

(She’d spent four whole evenings painstakingly writing individual names on tags attached to candy canes for every kid in each of her English classes. The Doctor thought it was futile, but she was getting into the Christmas spirit, _so shut up and get back to doing your Scrooge impersonation, old man._

He’s sorting through his bookcase when he finds a red-and-white striped cane hidden in amongst her favourite Austen novels. His brows knit together when he reads the tag;

_Happy Christmas, Mr Scrooge – Clara xx_

He remembers the candy canes and Christmas and four boring evenings, but he can’t remember her face or her voice or anything she said. But now he knows her handwriting. The hole she left doesn’t seem so impossibly vast anymore.)


	2. days five to eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a christmas tree, lights, baking and tinsel. their story isn't finished yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoy this next bit. four parts to go after this. x

**/christmas tree**

There’s a somewhat ferocious knock on her door at 3:09am. Frankly, it’s absolutely ridiculous, but the rapidity makes Clara’s heart thud harder in her chest and forces her out of her bed. She worries that someone important to her has died, and for some reason someone is telling her in the middle of the night – she stopped being logical when it came to death a hell of a long time ago.

The banging refuses to cease.

“Okay!” she yells, eyebrows furrowed, dressing gown draped over her shoulders, “Calm down, I’m coming!”

She clatters around in the dark for her keys and approaches her front door warily. She inserts them into the lock and heaves the door open. It’s fairly truthful to say that she’s surprised when her vision is completely blocked by a colossal mass of green, shaking and grunting, right in the middle of the doorway.

“Clara!” A familiar voice shouts, muffled by fir, “ _Finally!_ You take your time, don’t you – “

She releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding, her whole body relaxing. She’d laugh if she wasn’t so bloody _annoyed._ It’s like that time he broke into her flat last Burn’s Night; he’d spent it in Glasgow, 1865, and he didn’t realise the mead he was drinking was unfathomably alcoholic. It wasn’t her fault that her neighbours thought he was harassing her and he spent the night in a prison cell yelling _I could travel back in time and prevent you from ever existing, you moronic pudding-brains._

There’s even more shuffling. It takes Clara five annoyed shouts of his name for his face to appear from behind the tree, manic grin on his face, eyes wide and excitable.

“Yes?”

She narrows her eyes, backing into the doorframe a little. “Have you been on the mead again?”

“Mead? No, I’ve been in Norway,” he stares at her like it’s completely obvious, making another pointed shake of the tree, “Why would you think I’d been on the mead?”

“It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

“So? You’ll be going to work soon, I’d expect.”

“By soon do you mean in _five hours?”_

“Time’s relative,” he says, as if that can be a suitable answer for everything. The look Clara’s giving him undoubtedly suggests otherwise. He shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly. “Anyway, I thought it would be a good time to bring round your Christmas tree. It’s fresh from the spruce forests in Oslo, chopped it down myself… Why are you looking at me like that? You _asked_ me to get you a Christmas tree!”

“Yeah, _eight months ago_!” she exclaims, “It’s bloody _July!”_

His brows knit neatly together. “When’s Christmas again? Time travel, you see, once spent a whole year celebrating Christmas, brought a whole new meaning to that song…”

She shakes her head exasperatedly. It’s three am, and there’s a wiry stick-insect stood on her doorway with a Christmas tree he cut down himself. She appreciates the sentiment, if nothing else. “Fine. Put it in the living room. But I’m going back to bed.”

**/lights**

Emerald green and effervescent fuchsia light up the midnight sky in a display that’s almost impossible to put into words. He’d argue there are many more impressive natural light displays in the universe but Aurora Australis is what Clara wants, and she figured a long time ago that what she asks of him she gets.

The Doctor somehow lugs a battered-up sofa from the TARDIS and positions it in the snow. There’s no-one around, no people, no wildlife, no trees – it’s just barren Antarctica, the winter desert, and all they can see is miles upon miles of white. That, and the millions upon millions of stars in the sky, untainted by artificial light.

He throws himself onto the sofa. She watches, bemusedly; he gives her an expectant look and slaps the cushion next to him, beckoning her to sit down.

“These things can last a while,” he says, “This is one of the more notable ones – big CME-coronal mass ejection. You might as well get comfortable.”

“You certainly have,” she murmurs; it’s funny, the TARDIS and the sofa being the only objects in sight. She feels ridiculously out of place. She falls down next to him regardless, tugging her scarf tightly round her neck.

His arm lines the back of the sofa. She can feel the fabric of his coat on the back of her head between her neck and hairline. She wonders how he’s not cold, dressed like that. Time Lord biology probably.

“Thank you,” she says, catching him off guard.

He shifts awkwardly. “What for?”

She inhales deeply, looking up at the sky. She can see a hundred thousand words, spelled out in constellations, of a hundred thousand things she should say to him. It’s just a matter of picking the right one. Truth is singular. Lies are words, words, words.

“Everything. Thank you for everything.”

(Oh.)

**/baking**

“Come on Clara – it’s time for you to stop blaming all your failed culinary endeavours on kitchen appliances. It’s _beyond_ coincidence now. It’s exceptionally clear that _you_ are the problem here and not the oven.”

The Doctor says this examining a tray of Clara’s newly charcoaled mince pies, burnt beyond recognition, sitting sadly on her kitchen table. Clara slams a tea-towel down on the surface.

“Wow, thanks for pointing that out for me. I never noticed!” she says through gritted teeth.

“You could play ice hockey with these,” he picks one up, scrutinising it carefully, “We could try that, actually, I’ve been meaning to…”

She snatches the mince pie out of his hands and throws it directly into the rubbish bin with surprising precision. The rest follow shortly after, angrily shook into the bin bag with an uncharacteristic ferocity. She hates being bad at things. The control freak inside her is screaming. This, along with her hilarious inability to have a successful relationship, is something she can never get right.

She groans, head in her hands. “My dad’s coming down with Linda _tomorrow._ She thinks I’m inept enough. Or even _worse,_ she’ll start bloody pitying me and blaming everything I do on Danny’s death even though that happened over a year ago and – “

“Clara, they’re mince pies. This hardly constitutes an apocalyptic-scale type of scenario.”

She gives him a look. “Whenever the name _Linda_ is mentioned I automatically envisage an apocalyptic-scale type of scenario.”

He’s seriously working on his empathy and he recognises that this is a moment where it would be useful. He starts looking around, clattering through her kitchen cupboards for flour and raisins and butter.

She looks up with a confused glare. She’s not in the mood for him to be pissing around. “What are you doing?”

“I had a masterclass from Gervase Markham back in 1615,” he starts chucking flour into a bowl, not bothering with measurements, “I’m sure I can rustle something up that will hopefully avoid a premature apocalypse.”

(Result: premature apocalypse _not_ avoided. Beef is not a good substitute for mutton, and meat doesn’t go in mince pies anymore, apparently. Lots of smoke causing vision to be impaired. Yes, Clara, it’s the ovens fault. It must be. I’m a spectacular chef. It’s your appliances that are the problem.)

**/tinsel**

(He remembers someone dancing round the TARDIS control room to _Wham!_ [non-consensual he adds, as if he’d ever play _Wham!_ in his TARDIS] with silver tinsel wrapped around their neck and their shoulders. He remembers someone grabbing his hands, urging him to dance with her, and him firmly declaring that he won’t be having any of that, thank you very much.

The girl sings along like the lyrics are ingrained firmly in her memory. Her body moves in the back of his mind, but he can’t see it, only a glint of tinsel and an edge of a hip. He remembers small, curved hands clinging to the back of his neck and his reluctant (but not really reluctant) choice to give in and dance with her. He wants so badly to see her smile. He’d forgo the tinsel and the song and the dancing for the smile.

This girl, this faceless girl, has one of his hearts squeezed in her fist. He’d quite like it back. That’s a good enough reason, right? To feel whole again, he needs to find her, and this is a mercy mission that is totally and completely selfish yet inherently necessary.)

 


End file.
